Terror Threat Prompts England Badminton Pull-out
The England team has withdrawn from the World Badminton Championships in India because of ‘a specific terrorist threat’ made by extremists.
The eight-strong squad pulled out of the tournament, which starts this week in Hyderabad, after reports of threats by Muslim extremists Lashkar-e-Taiba.
While the England squad have flown home ahead of the tournament, their Welsh and Scottish counterparts have chosen to stay.
Anne Smillie, chief executive of Badminton Scotland, said that Badminton England had ‘perhaps overreacted’.
She said: ‘I don’t necessarily think they’ve made the right decision. Certainly our Scottish players and our team manager who are in Hyderabad feel confident that the security is at its best. They have been well looked after and they have no intention of coming home.’
Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy said: ‘After the Olympic Games, this is the most prestigious championships in the world but we were not prepared to risk the safety of our players, coaches and staff in what we felt could have been a very volatile environment.’
And after taking advice from the Foreign Office and British High Commission, the conclusion made by Badminton England was ‘that safety is of paramount importance,’ he added.
Lashkar-e-Taiba is Urdu for Soldiers of the Pure, and is a Pakistan-based organisation fighting against Indian control in Kashmir.
It has been blamed for several terrorist incidents in India including the October 2005 bomb attacks in Delhi, which saw 60 people killed, and is alleged to have played a part in the armed raid on the Indian parliament in December 2001.
It was also linked with the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, which killed at least 188 people.
The Foreign Office and Department for Culture, Media and Sport had earlier issued a statement saying: ‘The British High Commission had been in close contact with the Indian authorities which gave assurances that the highest level of security was in place around the Badminton World Championships.’
